1. Field of the Invention
Various aspects are generally related to data management, and specifically to systems and methods for collecting, validating, managing, and sharing data between portable devices, central servers, and third-party entities. In accordance with some embodiments, the system can be used in a healthcare, inpatient, or an ambulatory care setting, or at another point of care or location.
2. Description of Related Art
Within the healthcare industry, the need for healthcare institutions, such as hospitals, clinics, and other health-related facilities to collect high-quality patient and other data is of paramount importance. However, the need to accurately collect such data, combined with the limited resources of many institutions, has caused considerable strain in the industry as governmental agencies, HMOs, healthcare payors, and accrediting bodies nationwide place increasing demands on those institutions to ensure the quality of their data.
Today, inefficient paper-based data collection processes are still ubiquitous in hospitals. It is common for the same piece of clinical information or patient data to be collected multiple times by multiple people, and in multiple different hospital departments, during the course of a patient's hospitalization. To ensure quality and adequate treatment of each patient, it is imperative that the right information be collected by the right person at the right time, and as close as possible to the point of care. This reduces redundancy, and improves the overall efficiency of data collection and retrieval. The current paper-based processes also pose potential legal liabilities for healthcare institutions, because of the risk of duplicate data that is inconsistent or that conflicts with one another. Secondary effects of paper-based collection must also be considered. For example, there may be a potential compromise of patient care due to the diversion of clinician resources that are expended to collect certain mandated data, whether that data is really beneficial to the patient or not. A healthcare institution may also suffer marketing impacts, and the potential loss of contracting opportunities, and opportunities to market clinical services, unless they can provide high quality patient data and treatment data to support their claimed standard of care.
However, to date no current system allows for quick and accurate electronic collection of data concurrent with the process of healthcare delivery with instant data validation, while providing the flexibility to then provide that data automatically to any of a number of different departments, organizations, or clinical entities. This is the area the present invention is intended to address.